


Westbound Trip

by CatLovePower



Category: Wild Boys
Genre: Australia, Concussions, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt, Kidnapping, Whump, hurt-comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 17:18:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4108807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatLovePower/pseuds/CatLovePower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of the series, Dan and Jack walked off together into the sunset, but... what if Dan's past caught up to him? What if bad guys were after them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Westbound Trip

They’d been riding for three days when Jack finally asked the question that had been hanging above Dan’s head since they left Hopetoun.

“The son of an earl, eh?” Jack was obviously trying to make it sound like it was no big deal, but Dan could hear concern and doubt in that simple question.

“I don’t really want to talk about that. Can we not talk about that, please, Jack?” He really should make a joke right now. Add some banter, lighten the atmosphere. But he couldn’t, not right now, not when he saw disbelief and betrayal in Jack’s eyes.

They ended up discussing the road, and how far west they thought they’d go. Maybe all the way to Perth and the sea, that seemed about right.

But Jack didn’t let it slide. He couldn’t let it slide, apparently. After all, the man had lost about everything in his life – his woman, his kid, his town. He couldn’t face the fact that he didn’t know his best mate at all.

“So, what was it like, having money?”

“I didn’t have money, my father did.”

“... Living in a nice house, having servants...”

“Will you stop it? I’m not some kind of aristocratic twat.”

“Then tell me about it, why—“

“Just shut up.” Dan felt anger boiling inside him, but it wasn’t directed at Jack, not really, only at his father. He wanted to punch Jack in the face, though, loosen a tooth or two and shut him up, but he knew he would have to face him one day or another and answer for his lies. It was going to be a long way to Perth, or wherever they were going.

His horse sensed his rage and neighed. Night was falling and they decided to stop. They exchanged very few words, and much more dark glances. Dan was to set up a fire, while Jack would fetch some water.

 

Only when Jack came back with full canteens, all he found was a smouldering fire and his horse. He sat down on a log and revived the fire with a twig. So what? Just because Jack asked questions, because he couldn’t let it go, Dan – William Jameson – was gone? Just like that, without a punch, an argument or a goodbye? That seemed awfully unfair.

Dan wouldn’t do that to him, but maybe that was the sort of stunt William would pull. Get away from so called friends when he couldn’t stand them anymore.

He kicked a stone in front of him. That’s when he saw it – a tooth. Gleaming white, with half a root, broken and bloody. He quickly picked it up, his mind racing. The blood was still red and shiny, which meant it was recent. Could that mean... Of course, he berated himself, Dan would never bail out on him like that. Something happened, and now he was gone.

A reflex had him drawing his pistol, but there was no one around; birds were chirping and he couldn’t hear anything.

“Dan!” he screamed in no particular direction, and dread settled in his stomach.

 

When Dan came to, he was tied up to a tree, sitting in the dark with his face against the rough bark. After a few minutes of cataloguing what hurt and what didn’t – leg, face, head, stomach, wrists, the list seemed endless – he realised it was a lot less dark with his eyes actually open. Dried blood caked half his face, and one of his eyes wouldn’t fully open. And he missed a tooth.

He felt like whimpering, but he didn’t want to attract the attention of whoever took him, so he muffled his grunts the best he could and pretended he was still unconscious. The bark of the tree was harsh against his cheek, and the rope hurt his hands. He wasn’t that tall, goddammit, couldn’t they have chosen a smaller tree?

Bitching was good, bitching was reassuring. What happened? he thought. Where was Jack? He remembered them not talking, arguing with silent glares. Then, someone attacked him from behind. Coward, he thought. Someone grabbed him, and another one punched him in the face. That made two of them, but right now he didn’t hear anything, only the small crackle of a fire, in his back.

What was it with people tying him to trees anyway? Pulling on the rope was no use, it only tightened the knots. Maybe he could wriggle out of it. There was blood on his pant leg, so he figured Gunpowder’s stitches hadn’t resisted him being manhandled.

“Just what did those guys want with him?” – wrong question, actually, since he could think of a least five reasons someone would abduct him. “Who were they?” was more accurate. Please, he thought, let them not be the Butlers, last time was enough. He grit what was left of his teeth, and waited for something to happen.

 

Tracking whoever took Dan was fairly easy, despite the falling night. The moon was up, and they hadn’t been all that careful covering their tracks. At least two men, and a horse – Dan’s, probably. There were drag marks near the camp, but then they stopped, so Jack figured they put him on his horse.

Bounty hunters were Jack’s main hypothesis. Bushrangers rarely abducted other bushrangers, especially shady looking ones like Dan.

The night was actually a good thing, and if he didn’t make a noise, he might find them and take them by surprise. Some part of him wondered if Dan was alright, but he quickly dismissed the thought. He really didn’t need any distractions right now.

Then he saw the fire through the trees and drew his pistol. Dan was hugging a tree, mattered hair obscuring his face. Two silhouettes were coming back with pistols and big smiles. Jack knew he needed to go around, on higher grounds, so that the element of surprise was on his side. The tooth in his pocket seemed heavy all of a sudden.

 

The men came back, gruff looking fellas, and they wouldn’t answer Dan’s questions.

“Come on, man! At least tell me who you work for.”

The meaner looking one shut him up with a blow to the back of the head. They laughed and sat down in front of the fire. Mean-one growled at him, bearing his teeth, and Dan sighed. Bounty hunters, he thought, even though it was weird they kept him alive – not that he was ungrateful or anything.

He was about to complain some more, ask for water, or demand explanations, when he heard soft cracks directly above his head. The idea of a wild animal praying on the injured crossed his pain addled mind, but then he smiled a goofy smile when he saw Jack, looking down at him from the top of the hill.

“Thank you,” he mouthed, wincing when it hurt his broken tooth.

“Shut up,” Jack mouthed back, before disappearing again in the dark.

Sometime later, the bounty hunters jumped to their feet when a booming voice claimed, “You got something of mine. I want it back.”

Dan smiled, because Jack was doing what he always hated: diving head first into an unknown situation without any plan.

“The boy stays with us,” Mean said. “I heard he’s rich.”

Dan burst out laughing. “You heard wrong, stupid. I’m broke, I’m a bushranger.”

“Make him shut up,” Mean said to Silent. Then to Jack, “I bet his father will pay us good money for bringing him back.”

Dan couldn’t even laugh this time. He was brought to his feet, the rope scraping against the bark of the tree. An arm snaked around his throat and a pistol rested on his temple.

“He lied about being the son of an earl,” Jack said, from somewhere above their heads. “He’s worthless.”

“Not very nice, Jack,” Dan choked.

“Then what’s stopping us from killing him?” Mean growled.

Silent pressed his gun a bit more against Dan’s head. The rope was nowhere near loose, and he couldn’t see a way out of this one. He closed his eyes, hoping Jack would know what to do.

“Okay, okay,” Jack screamed. “Not true, he’s valuable. But he’s mine.”

And that felt good, Dan thought, to hear Jack speak like that. Their old complicity seemed back for a moment, despite the lies and what not. He just wished Jack would hurry up killing those wannabe kidnappers with bad information, because his face really hurt, and it was beginning to get hard to breathe. That might have showed, because Silent loosened his grip, his gun unwavering.

A shot rang, and Mean was thrown to the ground. When he didn’t get up, Silent started panicking; he yelled at Jack, “Show yourself or he gets it!” before ramming his pistol against Dan’s head. Not helping his headache the slightest.

Then several things happened at once. Another bullet whizzed by, missing Silent but prompting him to take a shot at the invisible bushranger behind the trees – Jack screamed, and so did Dan when he unexpectedly managed to free his hands, his fingers chafed and burnt by the rope. He was going to make a run for it, but Silent’s big paw fell on his nape, his pistol once again poised at his head. This was getting old, he thought. And now his horse had run off.

“Jack? You okay?” he screamed at the trees overhead, hoping for a reassuring answer but getting none.

“He won’t help you,” Silent said. “You better come with me.”

Held at gunpoint by a guy taller and stronger than him, with a broken face and a hole in his leg, Dan had no other choice but to comply. But right now, he would have given anything to have his gun back. Or to hear Jack’s voice telling the brute to let go of him.

 

One down, one more to go, Jack thought. The bullet had only grazed him, but he decided to play dead, knowing they wouldn’t come up and check.

He still didn’t know how those guys came to know about Dan’s alleged ascendance – drunks overhearing a conversation in a bar, or just people who recognised William Jameson from a previous encounter. But now he had a better view of the situation. With the seemingly intelligent of the two dead, the other one was bound to panic and make a mistake.

The bullet hadn't pierced his arm, but it was still bleeding. He tied his bandana around his biceps, gritting his teeth as it hurt like a bitch. Despite the night, he had no trouble following Dan and the remaining bad man. His friend was limping and giving his captor a hard time. Jack just hoped he wouldn’t get himself killed; only he was allowed to think about killing that insufferable little man. For a brief instant, the bushranger didn’t know what hurt more, his arm or his heart. God, he was getting soft.

Then he heard a scream, piercing and brief, more like a shriek. He stopped moving, taking cover. There was a scuffle ahead, and he didn’t know who was winning.

 

Dan was having trouble keeping up with the pace. His abductor had longer, non-holey legs, while putting any weight on his leg was becoming unbearable. Dan tried to plant the heal of his good leg in the ground, to slow down their escape, but it only made the wound burn like fire, and enraged the big guy hauling him around. The grip on his arm was unrelenting. The bushranger wondered what would happen if he fell down. Would Silent stop, or would he wrench Dan’s arm out of its socket in his haste to run away? Was a ransom call as effective when your hostage was half dead?

“Look, mate, I’m bleeding, you need to stop,” Dan tried arguing.

“You want another hole to bleed from?”

“I’m just saying... You can’t expect my father to—“

But he never got to finish his sentence because Silent abruptly turned around, and Dan fell to his knees with a shout. He tried to punch his captor where it hurt the most, but the gun was back against his face, too close for comfort.

Silent brought Dan back on his feet, shaking him as if he was a ragdoll. Dan certainly felt like one right now.

“Don’t you ever stop talking?” Silent growled.

“Nah, never,” Jack answered.

“Jack!” Dan exclaimed with great relief.

He tried to squirm and turn around, suddenly forgetting the situation at stake, only focused on checking if his friend was alright. All he got for his troubles was the cross of Silent’s pistol hitting his skull. The last thought that crossed his mind before he went down hard was a distant worry about his misplaced hat.

 

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jack said in a cold voice.

He forced himself not to look at his friend, unconscious on the ground, and kept his gaze on Mr Kidnapper. “Your pal is dead”, Jack stated. “What’s keeping me from killing you as well?”

“I, I...”

The big guy waved his gun around, looking unsure of what to do now. He decided to keep pointing it at Dan, which made no sense if they were really expecting money from his old man. Jack told him so, and watched the guy get more and more confused. He was sweating an awful lot. He was bound to make a mistake. Jack just had to be ready and take his chance when he could.

And he didn’t have to wait long. At that point, Jack was pretty sure the kidnapper was either completely stupid or actually traumatized by his friend’s death, because he wiped the sweat from his brow with the hand holding the gun. Dan, bless him, chose that moment to come round, mumbling something incoherent about his horse, and providing Jack with a perfect opportunity. He pounced on the big guy, surprise giving him the upper hand just long enough to bring him down. Jack threw a punch, hitting him square in the jaw, and they fell to the ground, scraping for the gun.

 

Dan woke up, his brain fuzzy and his eyelids uncooperative. He felt warm and achy, but in a distant, dull way. When he realized he couldn’t move, he opened his eyes for good and swore – tried to at least, because his mouth seemed full of cotton, blood and pain, and the words came out garbled. The sky was blue above, and the leaves were moving rapidly. It made no sense, and it wasn’t helping his headache the slightest. He groaned and tried to free his hands, but they were pinned to his side.

He was lying down in the back of an open cart, he realized belatedly. Not tied up as he first thought so, but tucked in a blanket. And there was a girl watching over him. He did a double take on that one, because she looked very young, probably Chinese, and appeared to be wearing his own hat. He tried to wriggle out of the restrictive blanket, catching her attention.

“You want water?” she asked with a slight accent.

She didn’t wait for an answer, and next thing Dan knew, there was a canteen in front of his face. With the tip of his tongue, he carefully felt around in his mouth, while trying to figure out if it was safe to open his mouth or not; the hole of his missing tooth had been plugged with God knows what, but he reckoned he was too thirsty to refuse.

He gulped down the warm water like a man lost in the desert. Just how long had he been asleep exactly? And where the hell were they? He lied back down and went back to watching the trees moving overhead, and the back of the stranger driving the horses. So many questions, he just couldn’t decide on one.

“How come you’re not complaining?” The tone was mocking, maybe a little bit jealous even.

“Jack!”

Dan struggled with renewed energy and finally managed to get free from the annoying blanket, despite the young girl’s protests.

“She was afraid you’d fall from the cart,” Jack explained. He was riding his horse next to the carriage.

“Father’s not happy. We are late on schedule,” the Chinese girl explained. “Because of you.”

“Sorry, I guess,” Dan said. “That’s my hat,” he added, pointing at the girl’s head. She kept smiling her funny smile and made no move to give it back.

“What happened?” Dan asked Jack. He was a little fuzzy on the details, to say the least.

“What's the last thing you remember?” Jake sounded wary, all of a sudden.

“Being kidnapped,” Dan said, feeling the side of his face. The blood had dried but it still hurt. “Being forced to run with a gunshot wound.” He looked at his leg, tangled in the flimsy blanket. His pant leg was torn, still tacky with blood, but a white bandage was peeking underneath.

Jack seemed to expect something more, so Dan ventured, “Did I do something awesome that I don't remember?”

“I rescued you. You insisted you were okay. Then you puked all over and passed out.”

“Nothing awesome then?” Dan said with a grin.

“Not really, no.”

You scared me, don't ever do that again, we're still friends, right? They would never say it out loud, but they both thought as much.

“You're funny,” the little Chinese girl laughed. She handed Dan his hat with a pout.

His back still turned, her father growled something in Chinese which sounded suspiciously like, “Absolutely hilarious, now could you please get lost.”

 

They parted ways when they got to the next town - more of a small village really - thanking the older Chinese for his disgruntled help. With only one horse for the both of them, Jack ended up walking while a still very concussed Dan tried to swallow his pride and enjoy the ride.

“You really don't remember, do you?” Jack asked again later on the road, after they had been discussing stealing another horse or stopping somewhere long enough to earn money to buy it. There was something akin to sadness in his voice that kind of scared Dan. What could he have said that bothered his friend so much?

The tense silence that followed his renewed affirmation that everything after the blow to the head was a blur reminded him of another awkward silence, what seemed ages ago. Jack wanting to know about his past. The argument they never got to finish.

“I changed my name because I wanted nothing to do with my father anymore,” he began.

“Dan, you don't have to explain...” Jack said, surprising the other man.

“He was—” he continued.

“Dan,” Jack interrupted him. Once again, this inexplicable sadness pervading his voice.

“What?” Dan asked, a bit forcefully. It was hard enough to talk about that as it was. Hell, even mentioning the bastard was painful.

He turned to look at his companion, but his eyes where hidden by the brim of his hat, obscuring his expression. Then it dawned on Dan.

“I already told you, didn't I?”

“Sort of.”

“How he started beating me black and blue when I was six? Did I mentioned that time he broke my fingers because I refused to learn to play the piano? As if that was going to help anyway...” Dan was rambling by then.

“Not exactly,” Jack said, still hesitant. As if Dan was a fragile little kid he ought to protect.

“Then what?” Dan nearly screamed, halting the horse in the middle of the path.

“You broke down crying, okay?” Jack said, still refusing to make eye contact. “You were hurt. You begged me not to bring you back there. Back to him.”

More awkward silence. That was turning into a new mode of communication.

“You know we'll always be friends, right? That I'll always have your back, no matter what.” Jack seemed angry that Dan might have thought otherwise.

“Of course I know that,” Dan cheered. “It was the head injury talking,” he added. That sounded like a lie. That sounded like Dan, too.

“You really never shut up,” Jack scoffed.

And just like that, they resumed their journey west, despite the lies, the injuries and the bad memories.


End file.
